


Of Absurd Nicknames and Holding Grudges

by desree_rd



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Love/Hate, POV Outsider, Reluctant Admiration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 14:37:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desree_rd/pseuds/desree_rd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Excerpt: So, yeah. The thing about James T. Kirk was – no matter how much you ended up loathing him, you couldn’t help but admire him a little bit too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Absurd Nicknames and Holding Grudges

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the STXI kink meme, first posted Mar. 20th 2010
> 
> Prompt: So in spite of his many losing battles, I think that Kirk must be pretty proficient in hand-to-hand combat, especially to last as long as he did against Vulcan and Romulan strength in the movie without, you know. DYING. Pairing can be whateeeeever you want, but it'd be awesome to see an observer note that Jim is actually quite impressive and gorgeous to watch when he fights - graceful, powerful, whatever adjectives fit your fancy. That is, until he gets his ass handed to him. Again.
> 
> Cupcake’s name is entirely non-canon, seeing as I was too lazy to search the net for any actual canon name, or if fanon had decided on one yet (although, I think by now that would be Lt. Giotto)

The thing about Jim Kirk was – you either loved him or loathed him.  
  
If there was one thing Brody McAllister had learned during his four years in Starfleet Academy, it was that there didn’t seem to be any middle ground where that guy was concerned. Kirk was a slut, he was loud, he was obnoxious, and he didn’t let you forget his presence if he was in a hundred meters’ radius from you.  
  
A notable exception to that rule was not, as one would think, Cadet McCoy from the medical corps who, for all his scathing remarks of exasperation, was still firmly in his friend’s camp in any given fight; no, the exception was Cadet Uhura. Most of the time the cool aspiring Communications Officer seemed to loathe Kirk along with the rest of – well, _half_ of the campus. On the other hand, Kirk seemed to have a knack for coaxing a genuine smile or even a laugh out of her at least once a week.  
  
Anyway.  
  
You see, McAllister firmly counted himself among the half of the campus who utterly loathed Third Year Cadet James Tiberius Kirk.  
  
He sincerely despised the fact that, if J.T. Kirk picked a nickname for you, it tended to stick; whether you wanted it to or not. Most notably, this time, his friend Leonard McCoy. Or _Bones_ , as he was now almost better known among their peers.  
  
The thing about Kirk’s _nicknames_ was, they tended to stick even in the minds of their instructors. McAllister would never forget the humiliation of having his combat trainer, in a moment of distraction, address him as ‘Cupcake’ in front of the entire class. If there was one reason to hold a grudge against Kirk for the rest of his whole damn life, it was that.  
  
Still.  
  
McAllister might despise Kirk with something bordering on obsession, but that made him neither blind nor stupid, thank you very much. And while he might look the part of a more brawn than brains security guard, he, too, had had to take the initial aptitude tests just like everybody else. The point being that McAllister couldn’t discount the fact that the farm boy had breezed almost effortlessly through the Academy and was now part of the senior class who had started out with a year’s head start.  
  
There was this sentence floating around campus: ‘genius-level repeat offender.’ McAllister couldn’t think of a better way to describe Kirk, for all that the brat was still impersonating the dumb hick from the bar back in Riverside.  
  
Oh, how he longed to plant his fist into that smug grin again. There was a touch of nostalgia every time McAllister thought back to that night.  
  
Even then, though, there was something about Kirk that didn’t let you be simply _indifferent_ about him. McAllister wasn’t too proud to confess (even though he _was_ too smart to ever confess this to Captain Pike) that he had been spoiling for a fight, and the scrawny backwoods farm boy blatantly hitting on a fellow cadet was easy prey, or so he’d thought.  
  
Then he had been faced with _that_ attitude and nothing could have stopped him from throwing the first punch, not even holding back like he’d first planned to. He had expected the insolent yahoo to go down like a sack of potatoes. Had he ever been in for a surprise! Farm boy could fight, oh boy, could he ever! Even with their three years of combat training it took the four of them to handle Kirk that first night.  
  
It had been the beginnings of a comfortable enmity.  
  
No need to mention McAllister had been less than thrilled when Kirk had become an assistant instructor in his hand-to-hand-combat class. Fortunately, they didn’t usually take that class together, and the few times Kirk helped out in McAllister’s training sessions he was wise enough to keep away from him (it was surprising what restraint a watching instructor could inspire).  
  
What McAllister would not mention under pain of death (most likely), was that Kirk was _good_ at what he did. The underhanded, dirty fighting he fell back on when outnumbered or faced with an opponent stronger than him was – well, underhanded and dirty, but most of the time it got the job done. Pitch Kirk against someone his own size and skill...  
  
McAllister wasn’t prone to nor fond of poetry and would, most probably, forever be embarrassed for even thinking this. But watching Jim Kirk fight was a thing of beauty. Sharp, precise, fluent moves, lean muscles, skill, endurance (or maybe that was pigheadedness)... he had it all.  
  
Which was not to say that McAllister didn’t enjoy watching someone hand Kirk’s ass to him. Immensely. Luckily for him, Kirk was as proficient at pissing people off as he was in his studies. And he notoriously pissed off people twice his size, so yeah, McAllister’s favorite pastime wasn’t in any danger of petering out.  
  
Looking back on it, he thinks that’s what bugged him the most when Kirk was goading Acting Captain Spock into showing the true depth of his grief when he so mysteriously reappeared on the _Enterprise_ without ever explaining _how_. He had watched Kirk spoil for a fight before, and he never backed down when he inexorably got it.  
  
Oh, the insults were as deliberate as McAllister had ever heard from him, but the following violence...  
  
Kirk had only put up a token fight. Never mind that Commander Spock’s Vulcan strength had given him the advantage in any case, all Kirk really did was shield his head from blows and try to weather the Commander out.  
  
McAllister didn’t yet know what exactly had happened aboard the _Narada_. Scuttlebutt only claimed that Kirk and Spock had ended up teaming together despite their differences to defeat the hostile Romulan ship (and, seriously, if that was what they accomplished while barely tolerating each other, he was almost afraid to imagine what they could do should they ever get to be something like _friends_ ).  
  
The equation he could come up with, however – Romulans were related to Vulcans, sharing their superior strength; marooned on an ice planet, already exhausted; almost being choked to death, the bruises blossoming around his throat even now – should have left their latest captain barely alive in the sickbay, let alone issuing orders in the aftermath of the battle, orders that actually made sense.  
  
Maybe that was why, for once, McAllister swallowed his misgivings, and instead of getting into Kirk’s face about who the hell he thought he was trying to order him around just replied with a terse, ‘Yes, sir,’ when asked to make sure the Vulcan refugees had survived the unexpected shock wave unscathed.  
  
Hurrying through the corridors of the battered ship, McAllister couldn’t help but acknowledge that they had just survived against unthinkable odds because of this one man he couldn’t stand the sight of.  
  
So, yeah.  
  
The thing about James T. Kirk was – no matter how much you ended up loathing him, you couldn’t help but admire him a little bit too.

 

 

~ The End


End file.
